


Day Thirteen

by dizzy



Series: Crisscolfer Advent 2014 [13]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M, crisscolfer advent 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:51:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Prompt:</b> High school CC. (They're classmates, but have never spoken to each other). Chris starts to receive secret santa gifts in his locker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day Thirteen

Darren Criss is a senior. He’s class president, class clown, and most likely to succeed. He’s in seventeen different clubs, does concerts for the elderly, volunteers at soup kitchens, and is in general the golden shining star of the school. 

Chris Colfer is a sophomore. He’s in two clubs, and one of them he had to make himself. He spends his weekends in his bedroom at home watching cartoons and avidly following several reddit forums. 

Chris and Darren aren’t friends at all. 

They’ve never even spoken. 

*

The day Chris gets the first gift in his locker is the day Darren Criss shows up in the doorway of the writer’s club meeting room announcing that he’s looking to join. 

Chris really should have put two and two together, but he does have a bad habit of sometimes missing things that are right in front of his face. 

Both events are so out of the ordinary that Chris doesn’t even pause for a moment to consider they might be linked. 

*

There’s a part of Chris that would love to tell Darren he just isn’t up to snuff, that the writer’s club is for the best of the best the school has to offer. Chris would _love_ to be able to say that, because by virtue of Darren being so popular and Chris being not so popular, Chris doesn’t like the guy. 

But Darren actually is good. He actually probably _is_ the best of the best, and Chris is forced to grudgingly allow him into the club. (As though it was ever Chris’s decision anyway; Darren has every faculty advisor wrapped around his finger.) 

*

The day of the second gift, he has his first conversation with Darren. 

“You don’t like me much, do you?” Darren asks. 

He sounds amused. It infuriates Chris. 

“Why would you think that?” Chris asks, trying his best to sound bored and like he’s doing Darren a favor by even giving him the time of day. 

He hopes it burns Darren that someone doesn’t love him. He hopes Darren is bothered by one of the peons not falling into line. 

He knows Darren probably doesn’t care at all, probably doesn’t notice, so he doesn’t look to confirm those hopes. 

If he had, he would have seen the sad smile on Darren’s face. 

*

The third present is the first one Chris really _notices_. 

Before, he just assumed someone was trying to pull a shitty prank on him. Burnt cookies and a copy of Harry Potter so dog eared that it probably came from someone’s trash don’t exactly scream genuine sentiment. 

But the third present… 

Someone has framed the first article of the school newspaper he ever wrote. It’s from his freshman year and the school doesn’t keep back issues, so whoever did it must have been saving the paper. 

Chris is… confused. 

*

The fourth present has a bow on it. 

He doesn’t realize the bow gets stuck to his backpack until halfway through fifth period when someone starts teasing him about being so desperate he has to consider himself a present. 

“Stick it on your right hand,” someone jeers. 

“His dick would probably still try to exchange it,” someone else says. 

Their jokes don’t even make sense, but as tends to in high school the trend catches on. Chris spends the rest of the day red-faced and avoiding stupid masturbation jokes. 

*

“I’m sorry,” Darren says, in writer’s club one afternoon. 

Chris looks up from the short story he’s editing. He looks around to see if Darren’s broken or spilled anything, but can’t spot any mishaps. “What for?”

“I don’t know.” Darren shrugs. “Whatever I did to make you hate me so much.” 

Chris is surprised into an awkward silence. “I don’t…” 

“Yeah, you do.” Darren shrugs again and picks at the little edges of the notebook paper left from where it was torn out of a spiral notebook. “It’s cool.”

The idea of bringing Darren down a peg or two suddenly isn’t quite as appealing. 

*

The fifth present is just a new notebook. 

Chris is only half finished using the one he bought at the dollar store a couple weeks ago, but the new one has a plain brown cover with the words “fresh sarcasm, served daily!” stamped onto it. 

He starts using that one for the new story he’s working on, even pausing to appreciate how that first page looks blank and how nicely the ink of his pen bleeds into it. 

Darren is walking from the desk he’s commandeered as his own to the trash can at the front of the room and passes by Chris, glancing down at what he’s writing. Chris shields the paper from him out of instinct, too accustomed to the mocking of anyone that sees him working on fiction. 

“Sorry, dude,” Darren mumbles, and moves along quickly. 

*

 

“Here,” Chris says, halfway through writer’s club the next meeting. 

There are only a couple other people in the room. Chris is pretty sure one of them doesn’t even want to join them club, and only showed up because detention was full and the monitor sent them here as an alternative punishment. 

He’s actually impressed that Darren hasn’t missed a meeting yet. Considering how many other things he’s a part of, it’s insane that his schedule is open right after school twice a week. 

Darren looks up at him. “What?” 

“Can you proofread this for me?” Chris asks, impatiently waving the sheets of paper at Darren. As an afterthought he adds, “Please.” 

“Sure.” Darren beams at him and takes the papers. “I’ll do it right now!” 

“You don’t have to-” Chris starts to say, but Darren is already closing his laptop. He mutters, “Thanks,” and retreats to his corner. 

*

The sixth present is more cookies. Unlike that first batch, they’re perfect. OM NOM NOM.

 

There’s a typed note with them that reads _Sorry about before. My mom helped this time._

Chris stands in front of his locker and laughs. 

*

Darren gives the story back full of edits, but they all make the piece stronger and the sting is soothed by all the comments he leaves about everything he likes. 

When he makes the corrections and gives it to the faculty advisor, he gets a more strongly positive response than he has yet this year for anything he’s written. 

He wants to be upset, he wants to feel like Darren undercut him somehow, but he didn’t. All Darren did was take what Chris already had and make it a little bit better. 

What an asshole. 

*

Presents seven, eight, and nine come in consecutive days. 

Chris has passed the point of denial and moved onto curiosity. 

He leaves a something of his own, a sheet of paper that says _Who are you?_

The next day the paper is still there, but in neat block print underneath his original question it reads: “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” 

When Chris sees it, he heaves an irate sigh. 

“Asshole,” he says out loud, and then he stands up straight because… 

Well, he’s slow, but eventually he catches on. 

*

He pays the office girl a twenty for Darren’s locker combination. 

Two can play at this game.

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog on tumblr](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/105145733980/crisscolfer-fic-a-day-advent-2014-day-thirteen)


End file.
